WOYWW 392–More on Mamhead Album

This week I’ve managed to do a tiny bit more on the Mamhead Woods album that I am making to commemorate a walk we had with friends in the summer – a stunningly beautiful area of woodland outside Exeter, pretty well on our doorstep! How blessed we are to live in such a scenic part of the country.

Here is my drawing zone.

You can see some of the pages with the parchment overlay with tracings, now painted, and a couple of “logs” that I have made, lying on my light panel with its translucent cutting mat. On the left are some backgrounds, and at the back is my ATG gun, the wooden Turkish Delight box that holds my drawing pens, and various knives, scissors and other bits and pieces. Here are some detail shots of what I’ve been doing.

I’ve taken the photos with the parchment tracing overlays and added some colour. Here is the fern. I coloured it with coloured pencils in 3 shades of green.

I painted this one with gold Perfect Pearls.

This one was done with copper Perfect Pearls. Unfortunately the photo hasn’t really caught how shiny and metallic it looks.

The two metallic pages together. I am pleased with this effect.

I had a couple of small photos with purple flowers in amongst the greenery, and I searched through my collection of inked kitchen paper to see if anything would go. This particular sheet was used to mop up some Dylusions spray inks and I absolutely love the rich colour and the random patterns created in the paper. What’s brilliant about kitchen paper is that it is 2-ply, and you can pull the layers apart and get two identical sheets! For my two identical albums, this is ideal. I chose the best way to use the sheets and cut them in half.

The picture below shows how much better this inked kitchen paper looks against a purple background than with a white card backing, so I cut the pages from this purple card rather than using the white card pages I’ve used so far.

I cut the kitchen paper slightly larger than the pages and stuck it down using soft matte gel medium, folding the edges round the back to give a nice clean finish.

Here are the two identical sets of pages side by side, with the photos in place, also stuck down with soft matte gel medium. As they are tending to curl as they dry, I have left them with some heavy books on top, and by morning they should be nice and flat.

I was rummaging through the papers in my drawing zone and came across the teabag stains I made on watercolour paper – drying teabags in this way leaves fabulous marks that can be used for different things. So far I’ve mostly done tiny Zentangle drawings on them, but as I looked at these round teabag stains, I could imagine them as logs cut through, revealing the tree rings. I drew these with brown coloured pencils and then cut them out. I used the natural creases in the teabag stains to create the cracked effect of the logs.

Here they are in close-up. I am amazed at how wood-like they have turned out! It was a real spur-of-the-moment decision to make these! I am probably going to use them to embellish the album covers.

My Skype interview with the lady from the forum went very well, and using the iPad Pro, I was able to show her the various art works that she was interested in for her feature, and to give her the guided tour of the studio. I am looking forward to seeing what she comes up with on the forum, and I also asked her about our request for a specific art board to be set up. We spoke about the therapeutic benefits of art, and I said that although our request had been rejected because “all the boards are disease-related,” because so many people derive benefit from art when dealing with chronic illness and cancer etc., this aspect of life with illness should be accommodated. She said she would speak to the powers that be, and hopefully we will get there in the end! In preparation for the Skype call, I laid out a lot of stuff around my studio to show her. This is a montage of the photos I took of it all.

That’s all the art for this week.

Today we went out for lunch and I was so impressed with the way that my chicken chorizo dish was served that I had to photograph it!

My dessert was equally beautifully presented, but I was so eager to tuck into it that I completely forgot to photograph it.

Last week I did some more cooking, and got very excited by Jamie Oliver’s pork meatballs that he presented on his “Jamie’s Super Foods” programme, so I jotted down the recipe and made it. Full of wholesome ingredients, it was absolutely delicious and definitely one to make again!

There are red onions and apples in the gravy, amongst other things, and there is added fibre and goodness in the meatballs in the form of cannelloni beans. A good, wholesome winter warmer!

For ages I have been meaning to photograph the teddies in the window, and today I finally got round to it. Every day my hubby puts them out so they can look up and down the street, and passers by often look up and smile at them! He can’t remember why he suddenly started doing this, but it’s become a daily ritual for him and it gives people a lot of pleasure!

Phoebe’s operation went really well and the vet ended up removing a total of five teeth. She must have been in quite a bit of discomfort with them as they were not in a good state. The poor little thing had been confined to the bathroom all th previous night with the special non-absorbent litter in the tray, in order to get a urine sample, but she didn’t oblige – she spent the night crying and trying to get out! When she got to the vet’s apparently she produced a lake, after all that time, so they were able to get their sample! She was a bit disoriented when she got home but soon found her feet, and for the past few days she’s been extra clingy and affectionate, and very, very glad to be home, and presumably in a lot less pain now those rotten teeth have gone. She has slept a lot more than usual – she must have been exhausted by her ordeal!

Finally, as I was going to bed last night, I saw that both kitties had cuddled up together on my hubby’s chair. Two tight little balls. They so rarely touch each other, let alone sleep together! Amazing what a bit of cold weather will do.

Have a really creative week, everyone, and happy WOYWW.